A first prior art single gimbal control moment gyroscope skewed array mounting structure includes a support asembly and a plurality of single gimbal control moment gyroscopes, and has an overall pyramidal shape. A gyroscope is disposed in the plane of each face of the pyramidal assembly. A gyroscope gimbal axis is located parallel to a line in the plane of each face of the pyramid, and the line bisects the face of the pyramid and extends from the apex to the base of the assembly. The angle between any side of the pyramid and the base of the pyramid, which is the array skew angle, is constant. Any number of gyroscopes can be used.
One problem with the first prior art mounting structure is that the maximum dimensions and the volume of the structure or array is relatively large, particularly with a large number of gyroscopes. The corresponding overall weight is relatively large in order to maintain a required level of stiffness in the support assembly. This larger overall size adds to the complexity of ground and orbital installation and maintenance operations for the mounting structure in a spacecraft.
A second prior art single gimbal control moment gyroscope skewed array mounting structure includes a support assembly and a plurality of single gimbal control moment gyroscopes, and has the shape of a regular polygon. Two gyroscopes are disposed on each side of the polygon.
One problem with the second prior art single gimbal control moment gyroscope skewed array mounting structure is that it is only useful for arrays with an even number of gyroscopes.